Numerous city policies violated

The city of El Paso installed speed humps in front of Cathedral High School this year in violation of numerous city policies and against the recommendation of its top street official, according to documents obtained by the El Paso Times.

The speed humps installed in February were requested by school officials, pushed for by Cathedral alumnus city Rep. Larry Romero and approved by City Manager Tommy Gonzalez, according to emails and other documents obtained by the Times under the Texas Public Information Act.

According to the city's Neighborhood Traffic Management Program, the portion of Stanton Street in front of Cathedral does not qualify for the speed cushions because it's not a residential street, it is on a bus route and has more than a single lane in each direction. A Jan. 22 memo from the city's top streets official recommended against installing the speed humps because of the city policy and urged that any deviation from the policy be approved by the full City Council.

“The Neighborhood Traffic Management Process in place usually would address these concerns; however, I firmly believe that safety issues are a priority and I did direct staff to install speed humps on Stanton Street, which is a very heavily traveled street and poses major concerns.”

City Manager Tommy Gonzalez wrote

Council approval was never sought, and the speed humps were installed on Feb. 25 and 26 at a cost of more than $9,000.

In an email to the Times, Gonzalez said the city policy didn't apply to the Cathedral project because the humps were installed using general funds and not those from the Neighborhood Traffic Management Program that outlines those standards and allocates funding for qualifying projects. The city did not provide any policies for traffic-calming measures other than the neighborhood plan.

Romero didn't return calls for comment.

In his email response, Gonzalez said he approved the installation of the speed humps for safety issues.

"The Neighborhood Traffic Management Process in place usually would address these concerns; however, I firmly believe that safety issues are a priority and I did direct staff to install speed humps on Stanton Street, which is a very heavily traveled street and poses major concerns," Gonzalez wrote.

Romero and Gonzalez have been criticized for skirting the street repaving process under the $218 million Streets Infrastructure Capital Improvement Plan approved by the council in 2012. At that time, the council approved a list of streets that were to be repaved or reconstructed based on need, using certificates of obligation.

Last month, the Times revealed that city manager and his wife created a consulting company and hired Romero's brother to organize it. Gonzalez said his contract with the city allows outside consulting.Over the past year, several streets in Romero's district in Central El Paso that were not on the list were repaved at his request, including the street his house is on, according to emails obtained by the Times under the Open Records Act. Emails showed that Gonzalez was told of the plans to repave streets in Romero's district that were not on the list of capital improvement projects approved by the City Council in 2012.

Romero was one of the leading City Council supporters of Gonzalez's controversial $61,000 pay raise this summer. Gonzalez said there was no connection between the paving projects and the raise.

City policies

Speed humps and other types of traffic calming measures are typically installed using funds allocated to the Neighborhood Traffic Management Program first adopted in 2008 and last revised in 2012 using nationally recognized standards.

The program allows residents to petition for things like speed humps or bumps, traffic circles or other measures that help slow down drivers, but mandates that certain requirements are met. It requires a public review process before traffic calming measures are installed. The process is usually lengthy to ensure public involvement and compliance with city policies.

The installation of "express physical measures" such as speed humps require a petition signed by two-thirds of households on the street.

City officials said the Stanton Street humps were not paid for from the Neighborhood Traffic Management Program, but from the general fund, which includes property taxes, sales taxes, city fees and other sources.

According to the city's Neighborhood Traffic Management Program application, only residential streets with certain traffic counts and a certain percentage of speeders qualify for speed humps.

Stanton Street in front of Cathedral High is classified as minor arterial street, making it ineligible for speed humps under the program standards. Many cities across the country have similar policies barring speed humps on arterial streets, which generally have much higher traffic volume than residential streets.

The city's guidelines also say that speed bumps and humps can only be placed on streets with no more than one lane in each direction, The portion of Stanton Street in front of Cathedral has one lane southbound and two lanes northbound.

City policy precludes speed humps on streets that serve as bus routes, and discourage placement on streets with grades of greater than 6 percent. Stanton Street in front of Cathedral is on a bus route and has nearby grades of more than 8 percent, records show.

City policy also requires traffic studies of speed on the road and allows the installation of speed humps only when the 85th percentile speed is 10 mph over the street's desired speed.

Stanton's speed limit near the high school is 30 mph most times and 15 mph during school hours.

Documents obtained by the Times indicate the traffic study was done on Stanton on Feb. 25 and 26, the same days the speed humps and signs were installed. The 85th percentile speed never exceeded 8 mph above the speed limit in effect at the time.

The speed hump project cost $9,416.23, records show.

Chain email

The documents obtained by the Times showed that several city transportation and engineering employees were part of emails that questioned the installation of the Stanton speed humps. A spokeswoman for the city's transportation department even questioned how they would impact future requests for speed humps in school zones and how the city might respond to media inquiries about the Stanton humps.

According to the emails, Cathedral officials wanted to meet with city officials to request school flasher signals, which would require that the school or school system pay the total cost of equipment and installation and that city engineers approve its location. The school then asked for speed humps instead.

Cathedral High School officials couldn't be reached for comment.

“If there is a directive to install the speed cushions at this location I recommend that Council directs the installation of speed cushion devices on the Minor Arterial during a council session. This would satisfy their policy that requires public input/meetings for traffic calming where the adjacent property owners and the public in general would have an opportunity to express their point of view on the proposed installation.”

A memo obtained by the Times said

In a Dec. 24, 2014, email, Romero told West Side city Rep. Cortney Niland, who represents the Cathedral area, that school officials are "wanting to see if you would be willing to place speed bumps in their general area."

A few days later, Niland's assistant asked a transportation department head how to get speed humps in front of Cathedral. The assistant said that even though a past study showed the street did not meet requirements for speed humps, "I believe now though that we have enough support from the community to revisit the situation," the email states.

Niland said she recalled Romero asking if he could work on the project, and that she said yes but was not aware of the details of their installation. She said the humps were temporarily removed in May for the Slide the City event where a 1,000-foot-long water slide was set up along Stanton for a day. The humps were reinstalled after the event, she said.

A draft memo attached to a Jan. 22 email from the head of the city street's department to city engineers points out the various reasons why the street does not meet requirements for speed humps, and instead recommends that Cathedral install speed limit flasher signs to slow traffic. Under city policy, Cathedral would be responsible for the $60,000 to $100,000 cost for flashers.

The memo, sent by Ted Marquez, head of the city's Streets and Maintenance Department, said city policy bars installing speed humps on an arterial street like Stanton because "traffic avoiding these devices will be diverted into more residential streets, which is opposite of what is desired."

The memo said any decision to place speed humps in front of Cathedral should require action by the entire City Council.

"If there is a directive to install the speed cushions at this location I recommend that Council directs the installation of speed cushion devices on the Minor Arterial during a council session," the memo said. "This would satisfy their policy that requires public input/meetings for traffic calming where the adjacent property owners and the public in general would have an opportunity to express their point of view on the proposed installation."

No such action was ever presented to the council. Gonzalez said he never saw the memo.

The memo initially was not included among documents the city provided to the El Paso Times in response to a series of records requests that began Aug. 30. The city provided the document on Thursday, after the Times repeatedly questioned why an attachment mentioned in Marquez's email was not given to the paper.

Concerns continue

Gonzalez on Jan. 24 emailed the heads of the engineering and finance offices seeking an update on the Cathedral speed humps plan.

"Let me know when u find out if we can do. Would like to respond to rep Romero," Gonzalez wrote.

After a series of emails between employees and Romero, some of which included the city manager, one employee on Jan. 26 replied that he had spoken to the city manager "and received the following direction regarding the speed humps for Stanton: 1. Proceed with the installation of speed humps on Stanton (use the time before streetcar construction to analyze effectiveness) 2. Install speed humps from existing inventory."

Later that day, Gonzalez updated Romero on the project, and Romero replied "thank you for your prompt response. Great job."

On Jan. 27, Marquez sent an email to other streets, engineering and finance departments employees saying that they would proceed with the installation "as ordered by the City Manager."

He also asked Fred Lopez of the city Engineering Department: "Because this installation directive is changing the existing Council approved process for the NTMP program I need to know if we continue to use the approved process for all speed hump/speed cushion requests we get from the public and from the city representative offices or will you be creating new rules for the program?"

“Because this installation directive is changing the existing Council approved process for the NTMP program I need to know if we continue to use the approved process for all speed hump/speed cushion requests we get from the public and from the city representative offices or will you be creating new rules for the program?”

Ted Marquez, head of the city's Streets and Maintenance Department, said in a document

None of the documents obtained by the Times indicate an outcome of such a discussion, or if it occurred.

Later on Jan. 27, Sutter questioned the possible deviation from city policy in an email to Marquez and Lopez: "... from part of your e-mail exchange, it looks like we are departing from the norm, but is that for our convenience? If not, do we need a larger discussion about what the standard should be?"

Marquez responded on Feb. 3: "The short answer is that we did not depart from the norm for the convenience of the department. Fred can elaborate since he was our contact for this request through the city manager’s office. Fred is very familiar with the program since he was overseeing the process when he was housed here at the (Municipal Service Center) so he should be able to provide you with timelines and history of the NTMP program and I can provide any documents related to the program as needed."

No response from Lopez was provided to the Times.

In late February, a spokeswoman in the city transportation department questioned how future requests from residents for speed humps should be handled.

Lopez replied that the speed humps on Stanton "is a request by the City Representative which was approved by the City Manager. We are continuing to use the NTMP as the process for residents to request speed humps in neighborhoods."

Cindy Ramirez may be reached at 546-6151; cramirez@elpasotimes.com; @EPTCindyRamirez on Twitter.